Los Alamos National Laboratory

Outstanding performance in two vital mission areas resulted in prestigious awards for two Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists this week.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced a select list of U.S. scientists and engineers as recipients of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award.
The honor is conferred for their contributions in research and development that supports the Energy Department’s science, energy and national security missions.
“This year’s announcement of E.O. Lawrence Awards for two of our staff members serves to confirm the vibrant, mission-critical work being done at Los Alamos,” said LANL Director Charlie McMillan. “Eric Dors, in the area of space-based nuclear nonproliferation, and Chris Fryer, in high-energy and computational multi physics, are outstanding representatives of the capabilities Los Alamos provides in national-security science. We are united with Secretary Moniz in recognizing the essential contributions they have made to global security applications and basic science.”

The Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation was the recipient of the 2015 Dennis J. Woywood Compañero Recognition from Quality New Mexico (QNM).
LANL Foundation was nominated by Gene Schmidt, former Superintendent of Los Alamos Public Schools, for the work of Foundation Board Chair Dr. Bill Wadt in assisting the district with its continuous improvement process and application to the New Mexico Performance Excellence Awards.
Quality New Mexico provides tools for businesses and organizations to successfully accomplish their mission and vision by driving performance excellence.
The Dennis J. Woywood Compañero Recognition is awarded by QNM to organizations that partner with others to assist and guide them on their performance improvement journey.
“We are proud to receive this award from Quality New Mexico. Many have helped the LANL Foundation on its journey towards excellence, and we are happy that Bill Wadt and his technical expertise could guide the Los Alamos Public Schools with their continuous improvement process,” said Jenny Parks, LANL Foundation CEO. “Bill’s volunteer work with the district aligns with the Foundation’s ‘pay it forward’ spirit. We hope to continue to lead by example and assist other organizations in a similar way in the future.”

A new detection approach originally developed for tuberculosis diagnostics is being adapted as a tool for determining traumatic brain injury, one of the challenges facing the medical community as it works to treat military and sports figures with head injuries.
Minute chemical alterations in the body, called biomarkers, are the key.
“The goal of this project is to not only detect traumatic brain injuries, but eventually to guide treatment as well,” said lead researcher Harshini Mukundan of Los Alamos National Laboratory. “We hope that our project will greatly benefit the care and recovery of veterans and deployed troops.”
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) typically results from a blow to the head and it afflicts a significant percentage of US troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As such, TBI has been named the “signature disease” of recent wars. Players in sports such as football or soccer also frequently experience some level of brain injury and problems of the blows’ cumulative effects are gradually being more clearly understood.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has begun mitigation work near the Smith’s Marketplace. Monday, this excavator was lowered down into Los Alamos Canyon. The focus of the work is to clean up mercury left over from Cold War-era work in the area.

Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Christopher Lee is a recipient of the 2015 Early Career Research Program awards from the Department of Energy Office of Science.
Lee was selected for his proposal on “Precision Probes of the Strong Interaction.”
“This prestigious award is recognition of Christopher Lee’s outstanding work in nuclear and particle physics, which is a vital part of the laboratory’s national security science mission,” said Alan Bishop, principal associate director for Science, Technology and Engineering. “Early career scientists such as Christopher represent the next generation of scientific excellence at Los Alamos National Laboratory.”
The Early Career Research Program, now in its sixth year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work. Under the program, researchers based at DOE national laboratories will receive financial assistance for research expenses.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is starting an investigation into the cause of an electrical accident that injured nine workers Sunday at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, two of them critically.
Sunday, during preventive maintenance operations at LANSCE, a LANL employee was burned while working at an electrical substation.
The employee, who has not been identified, was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. As of Monday afternoon, the employee was listed in critical but stable condition, although UNM Hospital would release no other information.
LANL announced Monday afternoon the accident at the TA-53 substation is currently under investigation. LANL said it would likely have a joint investigation board along with the Department of Energy going within the next three days.
Of the other eight injuries in the incident, seven of those employees were transported to Los Alamos Medical Center, treated and released. The eighth, a 57-year-old male was kept at LAMC for observation. As of Monday, he was listed as being in stable condition.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan said he and the rest of LANL are hoping for a full recovery for the employee severely burned in Sunday’s accident at the LANSCE site.

Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan said he and the rest of LANL are hoping for a full recovery for the employee severly burned in Sunday's accident at the LANSCE site.

"We are deeply concerned about the serious medical condition of the worker who was injured in an electrical accident this Sunday," McMillan said in a news release from LANL. "Nothing is more important at this time than his well-being. On behalf of the entire workforce at Los Alamos, I would like to express our hope for a full recovery and our sympathy to his family at this very difficult and trying time."

LANL announced Monday afternoon the accident at TA-53 is currently under investigation. LANL said it would likely have a joint investigation borad along with the Department of Energy going within three days.

On Sunday, nine workers were injured in the electrical accident. Of those, seven were taking to Los Alamos Medical Center for treatment and released.

One with serious injuries was transported to UNM Hospital in Albuquerque and is in critical but stable condition. The other, a 57-year-old male who has not been named, is in stable condition at Los Alamos Medical Center.

A group of 10 delegates from the New Mexico library community, including one from Los Alamos National Laboratory, will travel to Washington, D.C. this week to attend the American Library Association (ALA) National Library Legislative Day (NLLD).
The annual event gives representatives from each state the opportunity to meet with their Senators and U.S. Representatives on Capitol Hill to advocate for local and national library issues.
Among those attending is Carol Hoover, the digital information resources manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library and chair of the New Mexico Library Foundation Board of Trustees.
This year’s delegation, the largest ever sent to NLLD from New Mexico, is led by Acting State Librarian and Department of Cultural Affairs Deputy Cabinet Secretary Michael Delello and includes librarians from the New Mexico Municipal League Librarians Association, New Mexico Library Association and New Mexico Library Foundation, as well as public, school and academic librarians.
The delegation will speak to Congressmen and Senators about various issues important to libraries here in New Mexico such as recent library legislation.

The state of New Mexico and the Department of Energy came to terms on a settlement in lieu of a big fine doled out by the state’s Environment Department late last year.
Thursday, the DOE and the state issued a joint statement saying they had agreed to a $73 million settlement of the state’s claims against the DOE for the department and its contractors actions related to the February 2014 accident at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad.
The $73 million price tag is considerably more than the fine the NMED initial levied against the DOE, but that money will go toward “mutually beneficial and critical” projects relating to state infrastructure.
Among those projects, $34 million would go toward improving roads and transportation routes around the WIPP site and another $12 million would go to improve roads around Los Alamos on which transuranic (TRU) waste would be shipped.

Darleane Hoffman and Wojciech Zurek are 2014 Los Alamos Medal recipients, the highest honor bestowed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL’s press office announced Thursday.
“Darleane Hoffman’s distinguished career and her contributions to nuclear science and actinide chemistry make her a trailblazer and role model for all women in science, while Wojciech Zurek’s world-renowned work in quantum theory has inspired Nobel Laureates and provided a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics,” said LANL Director Charlie McMillan. “Los Alamos does not necessarily award a medal each year, preferring instead to wait to bestow the honor only upon a prestigious subset of nominees who have demonstrated the highest levels of scientific achievement. This year’s recipients are well worth the wait.”
The Los Alamos Medal was established in 2001 to honor those who have contributed to the laboratory at the highest level. The Los Alamos Medal recognizes individuals who have made a contribution that changed the course of science, a major enhancement of LANL’s ability to accomplish its mission, a significant impact on sustainability and/or established a major direction for the lab and the nation.